261–270 of 332 posts
His more important point is that recommendation algorithms combined with replies create terrible conversations. That helps explain why it's so hard to discuss anything complicated on social media.
The author sort of (but not really) acknowledges this midway through, but this is basically a summary of the most recent Technology Connections video, Algorithms are breaking how we think : https://youtu.be/QEJpZjg8GuA I'd rather they acknowledge Alec as the inspiration/source for this post at the beginning and explicitly, rather than just mentioning the video in passing midway through, but at least they do link to i…
In the spirit of the video (and the article), I'm watching this on Freetube [0] while hiding the comments, recommended videos tab, and pretty much everything else apart from the video description. [0] https://freetubeapp.io/
They’re more crude but it’s the same idea. You tell a company you like a general topic by choosing a channel, magazine, or section of the newspaper. They give you content that is curated. This curation is automatic and sophisticated in social media apps but is more manual in legacy media, but the idea is generally the same. At some point someone or something is taking a guess at what kind of content you want to see.
All of these forms of passive content involve advertiser influence just the same as social media algorithms.
Maybe algorithmic media isn’t always so alarmingly bad? Maybe it’s okay to have some downtime and just allow someone else to fill that time? It was acceptable for the comics section of the newspaper to waste some time in your day but it’s so harmful for for some silly meme content to do the same just because technology was involved in the latter.
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If you have to go outside of youtube you modify its behavior, that doesn't really qualify as "you can make it stop". That's like saying you can make someone stop shooting you by wearing a Kevlar vest.
What a silly comparison.
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I agree with you almost completely. I never used YT as a content source until a few years ago - I’d never open the app and only watch videos linked or embedded / looking up a specific how to video. Now it’s different though. I never go to my subscription feed - the front page algo keeps me up to date on any new content from people I want to see updates on. I’ve noticed too it almost has a “shadow subscription” where…
My interests vary so widely that my home feed is awful. I like watching videos on power tools, software development, video games, sports highlights, math, and other, less focused things like the hoard of cat video channels I sub to to keep existential dread at bay. I get recommended right leaning videos and videos with ads for manscaped and I'm neither a conservative or a man. It's super weird so I tend to separate m…
Right now my homepage seems to be
- construction/DIY videos (Perkins, B1M, Megaprojects, Matt Risinger, NS Builders)
- video game dev (blackthornprod)
- "indie game of the day" channels (Aliensrock, Nialus)
- military videos (Battleship New Jersey, Ryan McBeth)
- freerunning / urban exploration (STORRER)
- movie & tv analysis / commentary (Frame Voyager, Corridor Crew, New Rockstars)
- chess (agagmotor, Magnus)
- Minecraft (Mumbo Jumbo)
- random documentaries (fern, Stewert Hicks, Half as Interesting)
- egypt / pyramids (History for GRANITE)
- science / engineering (Adam Savage, Colin Fruze, Applied Engineering)
- coding (Tsoding)
From just a quick scan of the topics / channels.
Getting away from the algos is untenable if you use the mainstream internet in any capacity. The trick is to be more intentional about gaming them to your advantage. My feeds usually surface things I value because I am deliberate about what signals I reinforce. I don't engage with content that outrages or upsets me, so it doesn't show me it. Some people are rage addicts and want to get into a doom loop because it fulfills their psychological sense of certainty that things will only get worse. Other people are ignorant of the algorithms and how they work so they never realize it is presenting a distorted picture.
Having varied pipelines for information intake is important too. Forums like this that are non-algorithmic, doing your own searches, visiting websites you like directly, all of this lends itself to that end. No need to go luddite if you like your internet things. Just be conscious of consumption.
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What a silly comparison.
Seems perfectly apt to me. Javascript/CSS are also no solution at all on mobile devices.
But yeah, I do apologize for trying to offer solutions, as they are not perfect.
(Pretty sure uBlock works mobile too, but that's irrelevant)
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>People in the US tend to think it refers to things that are actually mixed economies or primarily market economies with strong social guarantees. Think things like the Nordic model or the European model... Yes. This is what people in the US mean when they say socialism in general conversation. They don't mean pure Socialism as Marx talked about it. Similarly when people say the US is a democracy, we know they don't…
Yes with the pedantic caveat that those aren't similar in the sense that one is a common confusion and the other is correct. The Nordic model is the sort of economy and political structure that the 19th century socialists explicitly reacted against and rejected. It's a representation of mainstream liberal democratic theory not of socialism. On the other hand democracy was always understood to be representative becaus…